Chapter 8: The Woman on the Dock
Sasha Verne was twenty-nine.
She had met Grant at a conference in Geneva eighteen months ago.
She had a degree in finance from a good university, a flat in Kensington that she paid for herself, and — Evelyn now understood — a directorship in a shell company holding stolen money.
Whether she had known what she was stepping into was the question.
Daniel thought she had.
Patricia Holt was less certain.
Evelyn reserved judgment until Sasha called her.
It was a Wednesday evening, ten days after the dock.
The number was unknown.
Evelyn answered out of instinct.
"Mrs.
Calloway." The voice was younger than Evelyn had expected.
Careful.
"I know you don't have any reason to hear me out."
"Then give me one," Evelyn said.
A pause.
"I didn't know about the trust," Sasha said.
"I didn't know about the psychiatric reports.
I didn't know about your money." Another pause, longer.
"I knew he was married.
I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
But I thought — he told me the marriage had been over for years.
That you'd both agreed to —" She stopped.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like what they always say."
"Yes." A beat.
"I know."
Evelyn sat with that for a moment.
"The directorship," she said.
"In the holding company."
"He told me it was a tax vehicle.
For his consulting income.
I signed the paperwork without reading it properly." Her voice dropped.
"I know that was stupid.
I've been told that several times in the last two weeks."
"By lawyers?"
"By my father."
Evelyn almost said something and didn't.
"I've given a full statement to Patricia Holt," Sasha said.
"And I've agreed to cooperate with the financial review.
I'm not — I'm not protecting him.
I want you to know that."
"Why are you telling me personally?"
A silence.
"Because you were on that dock," Sasha said.
"And I watched what he did to you.
And I think I understood, in that moment, that I had been very foolish about who he was." Her voice was steady but only just.
"I'm sorry.
I know that doesn't fix anything."
Evelyn looked out the window of her hotel room.
The London evening was grey and ordinary.
"It doesn't," she said.
"But it's something."
She ended the call and stood at the window for a while.
Then she called Daniel.
"Sasha Verne cooperates fully," she said.
"We don't go after her separately."
"Evelyn —"
"She was used, Daniel.
Maybe not wisely, but she was used.
That's not the same thing as what he did."
A pause.
"All right," he said.
"That's your call to make."
May you like
"Yes," she said.
"It is."
